Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered John Channing Briggs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Briggs, John Channing, 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Speeches, addresses, etc., American.

Speeches, addresses, etc., American--History and criticism.

Lincoln, Abraham.

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865--Writing skill.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (370 pages))

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Johns Hopkins University Press

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Originally published in 2005. Throughout the fractious years of the mid-nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln's speeches imparted reason and guidance to a troubled nation. Lincoln's words were never universally praised. But they resonated with fellow legislators and the public, especially when he spoke on such volatile subjects as mob rule, temperance, the Mexican War, slavery and its expansion, and the justice of a war for freedom and union.In this close examination, John Channing Briggs reveals how the process of studying, writing, and delivering speeches helped Lincoln develop the ideas with which he would so profoundly change history. Briggs follows Lincoln's thought process through a careful chronological reading of his oratory, ranging from Lincoln's 1838 speech to the Springfield Lyceum to his second inaugural address.Recalling David Herbert Donald's celebrated revisionist essays (Lincoln Reconsidered, 1947), Briggs's study provides students of Lincoln with new insight into his words, intentions, and image.

Contents:

Introduction : The mind of the persuader

Rhetorical contexts

The Lyceum address : "On the perpetuation of our political institutions"

The temperance address : moral reform and emancipation

The speech on the War with Mexico and the eulogy for Zachary Taylor : " injustice and heroic virtue "

The eulogy for Henry Clay : persuasion and/or principle

The Kansas-Nebraska speech : popular sovereignty and self-government

The "house divided" speech : the logic of hopeful resolve

Lecture on discoveries and inventions : self-government and inventions : self-government and arts of literacy

The Milwaukee address : thorough farming and self-government

The Cooper Union address : the empirical wager

Presidential eloquence and political religion : governing "in the providence of God"

The farewell address : "Let us confidently hope"

The first inaugural, the Gettysburg address, and the second inaugural : providence and persuasion

Postscript. The letter to Mrs. Bixby : secular scripture.

Notes:

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

Originally published as Johns Hopkins Press in 2005

Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-361) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-8018-8106-4

1-4214-3745-7

OCLC:

1135428173